PSU Count
July 31, 2017 Leave a comment
Daniel’s Story
July 31, 2017 Leave a comment
– ” What was the riskiest investment you made that paid off?”
-” I bought a Bitcoin in 2012 for $10.
Everyone in the office laughed at me but I was fascinated by the concept of decentralized currency and how it could re-shape finance as we know it. The friend that sold it to me is now Chairman of Israel’s Bitcoin Association and since I got one of the physical coins from Casascius which are no longer produced, it holds a huge collector value which is sits around 4–6 times the current $2,300 worth of 1 bitcoin.
Pretty good ROI.” – Daniel Buchuk
Life Of A Middle Class Indian Migrant Going Abroad
July 31, 2017 Leave a comment
MOST TYPICAL SCENARIO :
•Highly educated Indian from middle class family.
•Migrates abroad for lack of opportunities locally.
•Gets paid well, but lives in a pigeonhole.
•Gets adapted to cleaner environment, less population and a richer lifestyle there.
•Visits India for a month annually only to find the country a living mess.
•Returns abroad leaving back tonnes of chocolates, dry fruits, sunglasses, mobile phones, perfumes for drooling relatives and neighbours.
•After he leaves, family takes up home renovation, siblings’ wedding plans, donations to village temple etc.
•Guy’s next visit to India. Thinks of himself as a pro now. Visits native place. Buys agricultural land that nobody will till for a century to follow, so that he may build a farmhouse there on retirement. Gets it converted to NA eventually. Keeps paying heavily. Parents unable to find buyers for it.
•Next visit. Buys an apartment. Heavy EMI’s start.
•Guy’s fourth visit. Spends extravagantly on his own wedding to befit his emigrant status. Equally expensive honeymoon. All sourcing from his salary alone.
•Takes wife along. Shifts accommodation from pigeonhole to matchbox. Expenses add up. Three times as before.
•Next visit. Invests in stock market trade. Too smart to trust the portfolio to a professional. Family too naiive to handle it. Money goes for a toss.
•Next year. Has a kid. Education and upbringing expenses add up. In fact, that becomes the sole objective of holding on to his job thereon.
•Lifestyle has got upgraded. Family vacations to different continents are an annual feature. Anything lesser is so Indian.
•Can afford another child. Has another child.
•Children grow up and study in international universities. Settle there itself. Never to return.
•Guy retires and comes back to India.
•Zero pension. Bank balance decreasing by the day. Cannot downgrade lifestyle out of habit AND out of compulsion to maintain a certain ‘foreign return’ social image.
•Dependent on kids to take over from him.
•Finds his neighbours who spent their entire lives in India, as much settled (if not more) and living comfortably off their handsome post-retirement pensions.
•Starts providing professional expertise to Indian business startups to ward off sustenance concerns.
•Wants life to rewind and replay. -Amarpali Bhogle
The Aadhar Game
July 31, 2017 Leave a comment
Aadhar is a high-stakes game.
Data is a hot asset these days. And everyone , his uncle and his monkey wants to acquire or leverage other people’s data, any which way, preferably free and by using the coercive powers of the state, to build private fortunes and ensure that the whole world does their bidding, never mind how oh-so-not-in-their own self-interest it is for people to fall in line meekly .
The following is a presentation from one of the foremost proponents of Aadhar.An occasional good point here. An overriding sense of entitlement and belief that the author knows all and the best way forward and a frightening lack of empathy and disregard for what the rest of the world might feel or want.
My comments on this presentation follow below:
UPI Payments: Why You Should Check Them Out
July 26, 2017 2 Comments
Yours truly loves a great deal. And there was a time when I cherry-picked between various banks for top quality services. So, it was credit-cards from some banks, high interest rate FDs from others,some others to hold and manage cash, a fourth to buy bonds,etc. etc. And all this was obviously not just a one-sided deal, as all these banks were happy to upgrade my account and chase me with better offers in their respective areas of strength.
Unfortunately, a couple of years back, service standards started falling and after demonetization, retail banking relationships really nose-dived. A whole lot of banks no longer felt it necessary to serve customers to make a profit but felt they could corral depositor’s money in accounts and discourage withdrawals by means of fees, limits on cash disbursed at ATMs, limits on number of free withdrawals, permanently out-of-order ATMs, increased average quarterly balances etc. Read more of this post
wealthymatters 